New Evidence Has Surfaced On The 1962 Alcatraz Prison Escape Claiming That One Of The Escapees Is Still Alive

Commonly referred to as the world's most impenetrable prison, from 1934 to 1963 Alcatraz was once home to America's most dangerous criminals. Men of Alcatraz couldn't be harbored under normal prison sentences, they needed to be banished out to sea (the San Francisco Bay) where the threat of escape was nearly impossible. Unfortunately, the operative word here being, "nearly". For those of you who aren't too keen on true crime, Frank Morris, Clarence Anglin and John Anglin escaped Alcatraz back in 1962. They were never discovered.

Now, according to the Washington Post, nearly 56 years later, a man claiming to be one of the escapees has surfaced in a letter obtained exclusively by KPIX 5. Whether or not the letter is authentic remains to be seen. John Anglin (allegedly) writes:

"My name is John Anglin. I escape from Alcatraz in June 1962 with my brother Clarence and Frank Morris. I’m 83 years old and in bad shape. I have cancer. Yes we all made it that night but barely! If you announce on TV that I will be promised to first go to jail for no more than a year and get medical attention, I will write back to let you know exactly where I am. This is no joke."

To clarify, this letter was penned back in 2013. The FBI is uncertain as to why the letter has resurfaced in 2018, nearly five years later. That being said, they were never certain of its authenticity to begin with. As per the Washington Post, a U.S. Marshals Service representative told them that the agency believes the letter is without merit. According to the agency, the letter was submitted to an FBI lab for forensic handwriting analysis, comparing it to samples from all three escapees, and the results were “inconclusive.”

Inconclusive doesn't mean that the FBI can entirely rule out the letter, right? And with that, the 1962 Alcatraz escape continues to be one of the most elusive crime in U.S. history. The likelihood of any of these men being still alive is pretty slim, but that doesn't mean we can't continue to hope that new evidence will keep surfacing.